British APL Association News

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 33

Committee meetings of the British APL Association happen six times a year at the British Computer Society's Headquarters near Oxford Circus. They often occupy the morning of the day we hold an afternoon meeting at the Royal Over-Seas League, to minimise travelling. The starting time has just been moved from 9.30 to 10.00 to give those of us coming from a distance a chance to be in on the start of the meeting, when we begin going through the outstanding actions list. By the January Actions List we had generated 48 actions for the year, 28 of which had already been done. Some of the work we do is routine, like organising meetings, editing VECTOR, writing EDUCATION VECTOR, and never gets mentioned on the actions list. Would that everything went as smoothly! Some actions seem permanently outstanding, but then when I remember that we are all volunteers struggling to earn our living outside the BAA, I begin to be less critical of our shortcomings. But some of you have been wondering what has gone wrong with the association. I was recently asked "Has the BAA gone to the dogs?" in a letter from a member, having not received his November VECTOR by February, and losing 1-5 to Phil Goacher's answerphone during December and January. Yes, we still have problems.

But we are getting on top of them. Alison Chatterton's name and address now features in VECTOR, and as our paid administrator is just getting into top gear. She began in February to manage the membership list. Please direct queries regarding subscriptions to her.

Statisticians recognised the usefulness of APL from its very early days, and there are now many universities in the UK where APL is a vital tool in the statistics department. For some years the APL Statistics Users Group have been considering developing a library of APL statistical functions. Following a meeting of the Group in October, when our Projects Officer, David Eastwood, was present, Tony O'Hagan from Warwick University forwarded a project proposal to David for the BAA Committee to consider: the project, to be financially controlled by the BAA, should result in a documented set of functions useful to the statistics community. The Committee has agreed to accept this as a project, and a conference is being planned for the autumn as a first meeting for contributors.